Chicago White Sox

Our pitching depth is really amazing. There were a ton of guys that didn’t make the cut on my list that easily could have made those last five slots or so. The big names missing in the upper minors would be Puckett, Clarkin, & Guerrero. Henzman could have easily made a case for a spot & Battenfield’s results at least make him someone to watch. Plus we just drafted a ton of interesting college arms and I expect a few of them to shoot up the rankings next year. None of these guys have TOR upside, but we should hopefully have a pipeline of back-end options for the foreseeable future.

I think most of the movement will be on the pitching side. Here’s who I’m thinking will be traded and who would be their replacement: Shields => Stephens Soria => Vieira Avilan => Bummer Cedeno => Hamilton There’s obviously a non-zero chance Abreu gets dealt, but I just don’t see a lot of interest in other guys unless someone is willing to overpay for multi-positional guy like Yolmer or Leury. And with the Garcia’s already back and Nicky on his way, I think most of the positional guys will the same AAAA types who have already been up & down this season. I’m hoping they don’t call up Jimenez and start the clock unless it’s in early July, otherwise wait until next year.

Avila only has one year of control left, Cedeno actually has two years left and has been pretty damn good so far. I could see him being the better trade chip if we can continue to pitch well into late July.

No doubt, it just seems like they want as much depth as possible prior to the bullpen fire sale in late July. And Minaya is a guy they can send up & down as needed.

Two of those guys aren’t on the 40 man.

Vieira has been pretty good as of late, wouldn’t be surprised if he replaced Minaya in the near future.

Frank’s 1994 might be the best non-steroid fueled offensive season of all-time.

First multi-hit day in 13 games for Abreu apparently. Hopefully a sign of things to come.

Can you explain how the statistic is calculated and why there may not be embedded biases in terms of how pitchers are attacking him?

Same here, but half a season is better than nothing. Was really worried they’d keep him in rookie ball all year.

Tier 1 (FV 60+) 01) Jimenez, OF 02) Kopech, RHP 03) Robert, CF Tier 2 (FV 55) 04) Madrigal, 2B/SS 05) Cease, RHP 06) Hansen, RHP 07) Dunning, RHP 08) Collins, C Tier 3 (50 FV) 09) Basabe, CF 10) Adolfo, OF 11) Rutherford, OF 12) Burdi, RHP 13) Burger, 3B Tier 4 (FV 45) 14) Gonzalez, OF 15) Zavala, C 16) Stephens, RHP 17) Walker, OF 18) Hamilton, RHP 19) Curbelo, SS/3B 20) Sheets, 1B 21) Johnson, RHP Tier 5 (40 FV) 22) Adams, RHP 23) Cordell, OF 24) Sosa, SS 25) Vieira, RHP 26) Lambert, RHP 27) McClure, RHP 28) Flores, LHP 29) Rivera, SS 30) Pilkington, LHP

Makes sense to me. All those guys need innings. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Puckett there too for the same reason.

They could use the AFL to make up for lost time.

I agree with all of this. Not good timing and a recency bias could affect his value with such a top heavy league. He really needs to get out of this slump. I still think he has far more value than most people here think if teams believe they’re getting a 135 wRC+ type hitter.

When you ignore that players are human beings that will have struggles then you must be a robot. I get you’re a numbers guy, but you have to consider all qualitative information as well or you will come to bad conclusions. I mean, would you even be having this same argument a month ago when his key numbers were all perfectly in-line with his 2017 stats? Never overreact to a player coming too big of a high or low and that’s exactly what you are doing right now.

Well other than last year when he put up a 138. But I already called out his rookie season as being an outlier, just like his 2016 season. I also mentioned in this thread he’s probably somewhere between a 130 & 140 hitter. I just don’t agree with Balta that his poor June is reflective of a downward trend whereas I believe that his 2017 output (and not 2016) is a more accurate dipiction of his current ability.

Lol...what? 36% above league average is good not great? There are literally 24 qualified hitters in baseball above that threshold right now. Whatever dude, I’m not wasting any more time on this. I think you are completely off-base here if you think his 2016 season is reflective of anything.

Below are Jose’s stats for April/May of 2018, FY 2017, & his career averages: BB %: 6.6% / 5.2% / 6.4% K %: 18.0% / 17.6% / 19.3% BABIP: .331 / .330 / .332 ISO: .224 / .248 / .221 OPS: .882 / .906 / .873 wRC+: 140 / 138 / 136 Which stats suggest an unsustainable hot streak or a sudden aging? His BABIP good luck in May simply offset his bad luck in April. Again, I really think you’re reaching here. Jose looked really damn good those first couple months.

What? One month ago it didn’t look like an exception at all. You really need to pull his rookie season out of the equation as his droppoff the following year was due to the league adjusting to him, not some sort of aging curve. Other than the season he was dealing with personal issues and a bad June of this year, he’s been consistently in the 130 to 140 range for wRC+. You are really reaching here to create this aging curve narrative. Are you actually suggesting he just suddenly lost all his ability in June? If not, what elements of his production in April & May were outliers?

Dude put up a wRC+ of 140 in the first two months of the season (normally when he’s cold) and looked the part. Now he’s suddenly on an age trajectory because of one bad month? I’m convinced you’re a robot that doesn’t understand players have bad stretches and oftentimes will start pressing. I’m guessing being the one legit hitter in the lineup on a struggling team isn’t helping matters. Regardless, I don’t know why you keep bringing up 2016 as if that was somehow the beginning of a downward spiral. It was well documented that he was dealing with personal issues and completely rebounded in 2017, so your theory is pretty off there.

You keep looking at variables in isolation and jumping to crazy conclusions. First only velocity mattered and so Dunning was going to be a flop. Now it’s all about spin rate so Lopez will be AAAA fodder. How about both of these factors matter amongst many others like command & quality of secondary stuff. Pitching is a very complex process and it can’t be explained with one number. But let’s say it could, Fangraphs had Lopez’s fastball amongst the highest rated in the game earlier this season based on their pitch value calculations. From what I can tell, command and his changeup have been his biggest two problems this season. Those can improve with time, but obviously that requires patience. I just don’t understand the need to write him off so quickly. And I find it laughable you have more faith in Giolito thank Lopez, but that an argument for a different day.

Rutherford batted .380 in rookie ball with a 1.000+ OPS.

lol...yes, because front offices overreact to slumps as much as the common fan. Teams will pay for Abreu based on what they project out of him in the 2H of 2018 & 2019 and if they believe they’ll get a comp pick for him when he leaves. They’ll certaintly use the slump as leverage in negotiations, but that doesn’t change his actual value. For a guy who seems to understand baseball, your hatred for Jose Abreu is quite bizarre.

Wasn’t he easily the top AL 1B before cold streak? Who else would people vote for? There are no other household names in the AL. Also helps that Red Sox & Yankees don’t have stellar options.

Between fathom’s unwavering negativity & Parkman’s hot takes, I figured Lopez must of given up about 10 runs or so with 0 K’s. Then I check the box score and see he had a respectable start. And I get the box score doesn’t tell the whole story, but my god these game threads are brutal, way worse than usual IMO. It’s really apparent some people can’t deal with the highs & lows that come with developing young talent.